


The Elevator

by Nikoshinigami



Series: Trapped [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen, References to Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-18
Updated: 2013-05-18
Packaged: 2017-12-12 05:24:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/807767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nikoshinigami/pseuds/Nikoshinigami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John and Sherlock are trapped in an elevator and discuss suicide.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Elevator

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first in a series of vignettes which will be based on difficult conversations John and Sherlock have while trapped in places. To follow this series, it may be best to subscribe to me as an author or subscribe to the series for updates.

The dried blood on John's forehead was far too crusty to sit well as his face contorted in a yawn. It helped clear the ringing in his ears and test how well set his jaw still was. Not very. It popped and ached but worked well enough as it was. John rubbed at their connection near his temples as though he could soothe the impact's sting from his bones. At least his nose was no longer bleeding. Some days it was the small things that counted. "You're not afraid of the elevator crashing down the shaft?" he asked, blinking the sting of dust from his eyes.

"Obviously not." Sherlock shook his head, only adding to the poor air quality as a small dust cloud blossomed from it. His hair seemed to have collected as much debris and evidence as would ever be required to mark out the direction they had both been dragged. Saw dust, silver bits of metal from soldering and grinding, a few bunnies of dust from the under-swept ground. He'd a head like a used broom with each curl clinging on to its find like a visual representation of Sherlock's own mind. John smirked at it despite the gravity of their situation. Sweeplock Holmes and Dr. Bloodson. Gallows humor at its finest. Sherlock sighed through his own resignation and let his head rest on the wall. "If the elevator cables were to break and set us plummeting, there are two possibilities: we survive or we die. I don't fear death so why should I be afraid?"

John shrugged. "Everyone's afraid of death."

"Then everyone is an idiot."

There was no surer sign that an argument was not worth pursuing than the all encompassing idiot card. Having played it, Sherlock went back to taking in the unlit console as though there was one more thing they perhaps hadn't thought of that would mean their exodus.

John breathed through his nose, mostly to test that he still could. "Disfigurement," he said at last.

"Hm?"

"If the elevator crashes. Death, life or life with disfigurement."

Sherlock gave him an impassive shrug of his cheek that was neither a snarl nor a crooked smirk. "Same thing."

"Really?" John was genuinely impressed by that answer, the lilt in his voice hardly disguising it. "That's progressive of you."

"Same as death, I mean. If I were handicapped in such a way as was detrimental to my work, I'd end my life myself."

Spoke too soon. John shook his head with a bromidic frown. "You think you could take your own life, could you?"

"What do you think?"

"I think it's a harder choice than you make it out to be."

"Says years of medical training?" Sherlock asked, his left brow arching with understated interest. 

John rather hated the way he did that--the way Sherlock liked to pretend he knew everything and was at most amused by contention, pleased to start an argument if only to have something to be contrary towards. John had half a mind to make him regret his flippancy and half a mind was all it took on a short fuse afternoon. "Says an invalided doctor with a limp and an intermittent tremor in his hand, rushed off the battle field and plunked down in London with no hope or prospects for the future." John gave him a challenging smirk. "You think I kept the Browning for protection?" he asked, raising his own brows to match Sherlock's incredulity while the dried blood cracked at his hairline.

Sherlock schooled his expression to only a minor degree, still obviously intrigued. With his head leaned back he watched John over the crest of his cheekbone, long lashes hiding the silver ring of his iris. "But you didn't do it."

"Obviously."

"What was it that made you stay your hand? Couldn't have been out of familial obligation or you wouldn't have felt opposed to their help in lodgings and finances. You've no strong religious leanings that would cause you fears of repercussion after death. Honestly, you held no property, your belongings were minimal, it was the prime time to end your life and leave behind as little trouble for the rest of the world who would have left only to bury and mourn you."

Bit not good. Bit beyond not good. John could not help the slight pinch of disgust that wrinkled his brow. "You know, I thought your voice sounded familiar but I never thought to place it with that nagging voice in my head that likes to see how far it can push me." He folded his arms over his chest, trying in equal measure not to be surprised and yet manage his lack of surprised by the tactlessness of his friend. Sherlock didn't seem in the least bit daunted. "What?" John asked as Sherlock's unblinking stare began to grow far too steely.

"I had asked you a question," the detective reminded him. "What made you stay your hand? Why are you still alive?"

"I don't see how that's any of your business."

"No, but we are trapped in an elevator with no reasonable expectations of rescue for the time being. Humor me. It's easier in the long run."

That it was. John breathed in deep, ribs giving a sudden protest that caused his exhale to jump slightly over a split lip. He shrugged at first, flippancy the easiest way to handle such topics even if it did undermine the seriousness of the time past. It hadn't been a shrugging matter. It had been an all encompassing matter of weeks in which nothing was okay but he managed to get by. Counseling, dreams, the overwhelming sensation of emptiness, completely without purpose. "I didn't off myself because I.. had things I wanted to do still."

"Liar."

John turned an angry scowl in Sherlock's direction. "And you know me better, do you? Before I met you, you know what I was thinking and feeling every time I opened that drawer and saw the gun waiting there?"

"Yes."

John laughed mirthlessly, shaking his head as he let it fall back against the metal wall behind him. "You're a real piece of work," he said, swallowing the echoes of pain the memories of those weeks resurfaced. It tasted like bile and stuck like peanut butter to his soft pallet.

The elevator gave a long howl but neither shook nor moved at all. Settling hardware. Groaning gears. Tired cables. John remained quiet until the sound faded out, breath unconsciously held as he waited for the snap and lurch of their last predictable moments.

"Why would you think I couldn't do it?" Sherlock asked as the last ringing of metal subsided. "You didn't but what makes you think I wouldn't?"

"No, this is stupid." John kept his eyes trained on nothing in particular on the ceiling, knowing only that above them was where the connections were made that dictated the unseen level of danger they were in. 

"I want to know what you think of me. A person's thoughts on life and death are very telling of their character. You said I couldn't do it. I want to know what inferences you've made which would dictate such a response."

John scowled and let his eyes fall, finding Sherlock's macabre interest less than comforting. "Because if you were going to, you'd have done it already," he said, finding nothing in Sherlock's face or eyes that said this was in any way news to him. John rubbed at the back of his neck, the strange frankness of their conversation making it feel almost surreal. As well as Sherlock believed he knew John, though, John was certain he knew Sherlock. Maybe not in all things but in this at least he felt assured. "I don't need to spell your life out for you. I mean, how bad must it have been before you met Lestrade for _this_ to be an improvement? You got sober so you could be unappreciated and ridiculed by your peers. That was actually a step _up_. But you're still here for all this. So as bad as it had to have been, it still wasn't so bad that you gave up completely. I don't think you'd do it. Ever. I think you're made of stronger stuff than that."

Sherlock's face squinted in a look of appraisal before he nodded slowly and looked away, settling back in to his posture of repose against the metal wall. "Two overdoses--one intentional," he said.

John felt all the moisture vacate every corner of his mouth. He'd never considered a failed attempt. "... Sorry," he said at length, though he wasn't sure what for. 

Sherlock waved one hand dismissively. "No reason to be. Back to you, though. The reason you're alive has nothing to do with hope or expectations and everything to do with you being the most stubborn man I know. Someone tried to kill you and in that attempt, they changed the course of your life. You had something to prove and a world to prove it to. The gun isn't a symbol of defeat, it's motivation, it's empowerment. You own the bullet with your name on it and it obeys your whim, no one elses."

"The only reason you're alive is because you failed."

That took the wind from his sails. Sherlock stopped in his typical tirade, most of it having gone over John's head anyway with his own thoughts swimming. He frowned, twisting his head back round to look at John with creased brow and pursed lips. "That's one way to look at it."

"What was it?" John asked, finding himself too drawn to the questions to care about the fact that they were trapped for once. "The last straw, I mean. What was the very last thing that made the rest of it no longer tolerable?"

Sherlock shrugged and for a moment John thought he'd evade the question, carry on as though he hadn't heard him or pretend he'd asked something different instead. Sherlock was right; there was something very personal and telling about what made a man embrace death over life. Sherlock didn't seem to have a breaking point and yet... and yet obviously he did. He could almost picture him in his youth, skinny with the crook of his arm riddled in track marks, chasing dragons instead of criminals and wasting his genius on moments of temporary bliss. What was the thing that made a genius crack enough against the hate to give in and give death a chance?

"I realized I was different. Age seven. A bottle of Mummy's 'happy' pills." Sherlock smiled knowingly though the expression was far from kind.

Seven. John had been playing soldiers with the other boys at seven. He'd cried over scraped knees and fought with Harry over trucks and figurines. Seven was innocence and trips to the park--it wasn't supposed to be farsighted and scared.

Not a stupid young man drugged out and lost in restless circles of self destruction. A child. Just a little boy already self aware enough to know it wasn't going to get any better.

"Obviously I've come to term with that fact," Sherlock clarified, perhaps more to fill in the silence than because such clarification was needed. Men weren't born with strong defenses--they built them. Like any immunity, one needed to be poisoned first.

John let his breath flow, air whistling through his nose as he forced it out in a steady stream. "Sometimes, when I'm around you, you make me hate the world," he said as the lights above them flickered.

Sherlock smirked audibly, the hum of amusement off color from their conversation. "Funny you should have the opposite effect on me."


End file.
